MAY 2016

DEDICATION OF THE CHAPEL

YEAR 11 & 13 LEAVERS SERVICE

CONTENTSDUKE OF EDINBURGH

DEDICATION OF THE CHAPEL

AN EVENING OF ICONS

YEAR 11 & 13 LEAVERS SERVICE

ANNIE THE MUSCIAL

SKI TRIP

HISTORY TRIPS

CAT RESCUE CENTRE

LONDON DANCE TRIP

In this issue...

FOUR FIVEFIVE

SIXSEVEN

EIGHTTEN

ELEVEN

THREE

DEDICATION OF THE CHAPEL

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The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award continues to grow and develop at St.Chad’s. This year is the Diamond anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and is being marked by a special event, being held in Buckingham Palace Gardens. As a Directly Licensed Centre two representatives have been winvited from our school, Mr Lewis the DofE Manager and Mrs Burke as Deputy Headteacher to attend this prestigious 60th anniversary event.

Some of our staff have also chosen to take on the Diamond Challenge, which is a one-off award that anyone of any age can participate in to raise money for the DofE charity. Please follow this link https://dofediamondchallenge.org/ for information on the Diamond Challenge and get involved to help support this life changing charity.

The DofE is off to a great start this year. With 25 candidates at Bronze level in year 10, 23 at Silver in year 11 and 10 at Gold in years 12 & 13 we have very healthy numbers enrolled.

Also, for the first time ever at St.Chad’s, we have included the Duke of Edinburgh’s Bronze award in our ASPIRE programme, with 9 pupils participating in KS5. Taking our total number of candidates for this year up to 67 pupils, not counting the staff involved at Diamond level.

Our Silver expeditions, which took place in March and April, were a great success as was the ASPIRE pupils practice Bronze expedition which recently took place at the beginning of May. We still have four expeditions left before the end of the year, 3 Bronze and our Gold expedition to look forward to. As always pupils are exceeding their own expectations, when on expedition, and make our staff and school proud of their achievements. I’m sure that the remaining expeditions will be no exception.

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DEDICATION OF THE CHAPELThe evening began with a time to talk with friends old and new and moved into a beautiful service to dedicate our new Chapel.

As he walked around the Chapel Bishop Keith from Chester Diocese claimed the space for worship and prayer and a special Papal blessing reaffirmed that Christ is at the heart of all we do.

We were delighted to have with us friends from the churches throughout Halton and to thank them for their prayerful support of our school.

The singing from the choir was simply inspiring and brought a sense of awe and wonder to our worship.

The balance between serious occasion and laughter and enjoyment was just right.

Bishop Keith Commented:

Thank you so much for last evening’s welcome and the service. It was just delightful to be at St Chad’s and to see what God is doing. It was the most beautiful service.

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AN EVENING OF ICONSOn Thursday 12th May we were delighted to host an evening of Icons in the new school Chapel.

Fr Colin Wilson led a talk exploring the origins of icons in the Orthodox tradition, the symbols used in iconography and the role of religious icons in Christian worship. Around 40 members of our local churches gather to hear the talk and see the icons, which had been kindly loaned by Fr Colin, Fr Peter Wright and the parish of St Maximilan Kolbe.

In addition to the icons we were able to unveil the ‘Stations of Light’ prayer trail. 12 paintings on canvas were created in a community workshop led by local artist Chris Gilbert to tell the story of Jesus and his disciples from Easter to Pentecost.

These artworks will be on permanent display in St Chad’s and will be available for loan to our local church communities.

On Wednesday 27th April we were delighted to welcome students from years 11 and 13, along with their families, to a service of thanksgiving for their time at St Chad’s.

A selection of Scripture readings and prayers were shared and our choir, under the direction of Ms Smith, added to the evening with beautiful renditions of ‘ Down to the River to Pray’, ‘For the Beauty of the Earth’, ‘O Happy Day’, and our school hymn ‘Make Me a Channel of Your Peace’.

Mr Burke gave the keynote address, offering some well-chosen words of advice to the assembled students encouraging them to maintain their friendships and, above all, be happy in the years to come.

Our thanks to everyone who contributed to this truly memorable occasion and best wishes to all our leavers as they begin the next phase of their journeys.

YEAR 11 & 13 LEAVERS SERVICE

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ANNIE THE MUSICAL...Following several weeks of hard work it was extremely rewarding to perform to a sell-out audience on the final night of the performance of our school musical. It took a lot of dedication from everyone involved (on and off the stage) to piece together this classic musical that is currently on tour in the UK. It is rare that a Year 7 pupil will work alongside a Year 11 pupil, but being part of the show has meant that everyone from the whole range of year groups have worked together to showcase their amazing acting, singing and dancing talents.

It is worth noting our two year 11 pupils; Connor Evans and Calum Snell, who have performed in all shows throughout their years at St Chad’s and gave stellar performances as the ‘shady’ Rooster and billionaire Oliver Warbucks. Hannah Bailey in Year 10 played Annie and was supported by her peers Lily

Mayers playing the part of Miss Hannigan with Ruby Thornton taking on the role of Grace Farrell.

Year 7, 8 and Year 9 girls provided the cheeky, loveable qualities of the orphans, whilst Liam Fairclough and Kade MacDonald showed their versatility playing several male supporting roles. There were many other pupils involved in other acting, singing and dancing roles and it is down to their commitment and ability to remain professional at all times that ‘Annie’ was a huge success. An audience member declared that she preferred St Chad’s version to the one seen recently at the Liverpool Empire which is a huge compliment and well deserved by all our wonderfully talented pupils.

We can’t wait to see you at the next one.

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During the Easter holidays Miss Pemberton, Mr Maltby and Mr Blackburn took 20 Year 11 students on a ski trip to Arosa in Switzerland. This was an amazing opportunity as most of the students had never skied before and by the end of the week all students were enjoying skiing down the blue, red and black runs in the Swiss mountains. As well as being a fun-filled experience for the students involved our GCSE PE students were filmed, as part of their practical assessment, carving and parallel turning with ease down the black runs after excellent tuition from the Swiss ski instructors.

The resort offered a number of fantastic activities for the students to participate in and they were able to enjoy ice skating and playing Eisstock during their evening leisure time. As always the behaviour from our students was exemplary and throughout

our stay in Arosa we were complimented on the attitudes of our young adolescents from the coach drivers, the ski company, other teachers and members of the public.

It is a proud fact that our students can represent the school with such distinction at all times and that the number of enrichment activities we are able to offer continues to grow each year. This is entirely down to the hard work and dedication of our staff.

In all students and staff had a fantastic and memorable skiing trip to Arosa and we now wish them the best of luck as they prepare for their GCSE examinations. We also look forward to similar trips in the future involving more of our intrepid alpine sports stars.

SKI TRIP 2016

25 members of Year 7 who had demonstrated a real enthusiasm for History, either in class or through the History Club, were invited to go and see the live stage show from the Horrible Histories team. This ever popular TV show didn’t disappoint on stage.

We took a journey through time as England was invaded by tribes from other shores. The stories, songs, puns and bad jokes (which were even worse than those told by our History teachers!!) kept us laughing all the way to the interval.

The second half of the show was even more spectacular with everyone being given 3D glasses. We were the last to receive ours and whilst we were waiting screams and shouts rang out from the rest of the theatre. Once we put our glasses on it quickly became apparent why – the whole room was being attacked with arrows flying straight towards us (well, so it appeared with our 3D glasses on!!).

All too quickly the story was over and we headed back to school with our love of History made even stronger.

We look forward to more History club events and activities in the nesr future.

During the Easter break 41 pupils and 5 staff travelled to France and Belgium to visit the sites associated with the First World War.

A special focus of this trip was to commemorate the involvement and sacrifice of local people during the conflict. We were able to visit the very place where local hero Todger Jones battled across No Man’s Land to capture an enemy trench – bravery for which he was awarded a Victoria Cross. At Tyne Cot Cemetery we were able to lay a Poppy Cross where James Poole of Byron Street, Runcorn is c o m m e m o r a t e d on the Wall to the Missing. We also visited the spot where the ‘Liverpool Pals’ battalion, which included many men from Runcorn, fought.

The truly international dimension of the war was acknowledged with a visit to N e w f o u n d l a n d Park which is where volunteers from Newfoundland fought as members of the British Empire. We visited the graves of American and Chinese Soldiers and 8

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saw many graves of soldiers from all parts of the empire.

As well as visits to Tyne Cot cemetery and the Thiepval Memorial we were struck by the German cemetery we visited where there was a fascinating contrast in the way their dead are remembered. Wherever we went the pupils

showed real reverence and respect for the sacrifices made during the war.

In addition to the battle sites and cemeteries we were also able to enjoy the Passchendaele M e m o r i a l Museum at Ypres and be amazed by the size and scale of the Lochnagar crater. We even found time to visit the site where the famous Christmas Day ‘truce’ of 1914 resulted in a game of football

between the troops of both sides.

The highlight of the trip was the opportunity

to experience the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate and we were especially fortunate to have four of our pupils laying wreaths during the ceremony. Again, to their credit, the pupils carried this out with tremendous dignity and respect. Mollie Jones, a Year 10 pupil, said “It was a great honour to take part in such an important and emotional ceremony. I felt privileged to experience something that has been taking place ever since the end of the war, and incredibly grateful to all those soldiers whose names were written on the walls of the gate.”

It wasn’t all work though and at our excellent accommodation the pupils were able to relax and spend some time unwinding at the end of each hard day. During one meal the braver ones even sampled the local delicacy, snails. For those less adventurous souls we managed to fit in a visit to a Belgian Chocolate shop where lots of chocolate was bought. Our trip was aided by a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide, Alana, who certainly made life easier for the staff. The pupils however were the stars of the trip and their eagerness to participate, to learn, and make the most of the visit, coupled with their utmost respect for the situation and those around them, led to praise from the public, the centre, the sites, our guide and coach driver.

A huge well done to all those who went on the trip.

This half term 7L have been regularly visiting a cat rescue centre in Shropshire, as part of their Nurture programme in Science. I was lucky enough to join the pupils with Mr Houslay and Miss Moulds on their last visit, and had a fantastic time.

After a long drive we reached the rescue centre at 10am and pupils were eager to show me the activities they participate in. After a quick tour and a visit to the newly born kittens, we got straight to work! Pupils spent their time reading to cats in the retirement village, learning how to care for animals and working in the gift shop, learning how to manage a shop and even fitting time in for some Maths, while working with money.

The trip aim is to teach pupils about caring for animals, while developing skills for the future. The trip is enjoyed by all members of the class; Elise said “I really like reading to the cats and seeing them happy.” While Ben and Ryan both spoke about the benefits to them in their Science lessons and independent reading; “It helps us with our reading and Science because we are learning about life processes in Nurture.” The trip also lends itself to some cross curricular links too, having a positive impact in English lessons, and building good relationships with teachers.

I really appreciated being asked to join the pupils on the trip and hope to return on their next visit, and more importantly putting the newly acquired skills into practice.

CAT RESCUE VISIT

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On Wednesday 30th March 22 pupils from years 9, 10 and 11 along with 2 members of staff arrived at Runcorn train station at 7:45am ready to catch the 8:00 o’clock train to London. The pupils were buzzing with excitement ready for the day ahead.

We made our way first to the world famous Pineapple Dance Studios were the pupils participated in a 2 hour dance workshop, learning choreography from the show, which they would later use for an assessment piece in school. They were taught by professional performers who are currently performing in the west end show. The teachers said the pupils were ‘fantastic’ and ‘some of the most talented pupils they have taught this style of workshop to’. The pupils did themselves and the school proud, as some of the content was completely out of their comfort zone. Then it was off to watch the production of ‘Wicked’ at the Apollo Theatre, London, were pupils were able to see the choreography that they had learnt that morning being performed by West End stars.

We all thoroughly enjoyed it! Then it was off for a well deserved tea at The Hard Rock Café before heading to Euston to get the train back to Runcorn.

The pupils on the trip were absolutely amazing and every one of them behaved impeccably, displaying maturity and responsibility around London. We all had a fantastic time on the trip and are looking forward to the next one!

DANCERS VISIT LONDON...

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St Chad’s Catholic & Church of England High SchoolGrangeway, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 5YH

Email: admin@st-chads.halton.sch.ukTel: 01928 564106 Fax: 01928 572902

www.st-chads.co.uk